North by Northwest

Independent Films, Film Profiles

North by Northwest (1959) is an American suspense film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason, and featuring Leo G. Carroll and Martin Landau. The screenplay was written by Ernest Lehman, who wanted to write "the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures". Author Nick Clooney praised Lehman's original story and sophisticated dialogue, calling the film "certainly Alfred Hitchcock's most stylish thriller, if not his best".[2] The film is one of several Hitchcock movies with a film score by Bernard Herrmann and features a memorable opening title sequence by graphic designer Saul Bass. This film is generally cited as the first to feature extended use of kinetic typography in its opening credits.[3]The movie's world premiere took place in the San Sebastian International Film Festival. North by Northwest is a tale of mistaken identity, with an innocent man pursued across America by agents of a mysterious organization who want to stop his interference in their plans to smuggle out some microfilm (a classic MacGuffin).A Madison Avenue advertising executive, Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant), is mistaken for a government agent named George Kaplan. He is kidnapped by Valerian (Adam Williams) and Licht (Robert Ellenstein) and taken to the house of Lester Townsend. There he is interrogated by a man he assumes to be Townsend, but who is really Phillip Vandamm (James Mason). When Thornhill repeatedly denies he is Kaplan, Vandamm becomes annoyed and orders his right-hand man, Leonard (Martin Landau), to get rid of him.Valerian and Licht try to stage a fatal car accident, but Thornhill, after a chase on a perilous road, gets himself apprehended and charged with drunk driving. He is unable to get the police, the judge, or his mother (Jessie Royce Landis) to believe what happened to him, especially when a woman posing as Townsend's wife informs them that Townsend is a United Nations diplomat.Thornhill and his mother go to Kaplan’s hotel room. Narrowly avoiding recapture by Valerian and Licht, Thornhill catches a taxi to the General Assembly building of the United Nations, where Townsend is due to deliver a speech. When he meets Townsend, Thornhill is surprised to find that he is not the man who interrogated him. When Thornhill questions him, Townsend states that his wife is dead. At that moment, Valerian throws a knife that strikes Townsend in the back. He falls forward, dead, into Thornhill's arms. Unthinkingly, Thornhill removes the knife, making it appear that he is the killer. A passing photographer captures the scene, forcing him to flee.From Kaplan's itinerary, Thornhill knows he has a reservation at a Chicago hotel the next day. Thornhill goes to Grand Central Terminal and sneaks onto the 20th Century Limited train. On board, he meets Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), who helps Thornhill evade policemen searching the train for him by hiding him twice: once in the overhead, fold-up bunk in her compartment. She asks about his personalized matchbooks with the initials ROT; he says the O stands for nothing. Unbeknownst to Thornhill, Eve notifies Vandamm and Leonard, who are in another compartment.Arriving at Chicago's LaSalle Street Station, Thornhill borrows the uniform of one of the porters and carries Eve's luggage through the crowd. Although the police are alerted to his disguise, the sheer number of porters saves Thornhill. Meanwhile, Eve (who is Vandamm's lover) lies to Thornhill, telling him she has arranged a meeting with Kaplan.In an iconic sequence, Thornhill travels by bus to meet Kaplan at an isolated crossroads in the middle of a perfectly flat, open Indiana countryside. The only other person in sight is a man who is dropped off and waits at the opposite bus stop. Before boarding the next bus, he notes that a plane is "dusting crops where there ain't no crops." Without warning, the plane flies towards Thornhill and starts shooting at him. He is chased through a cornfield and dusted with pesticide. Finally, Thornhill steps in front of an oncoming gasoline tank truck, which stops barely in time. The plane crashes into it and explodes. When passing drivers stop to see what is going on, Thornhill steals a pickup truck.Thornhill goes to Kaplan's hotel, but is surprised to learn that Kaplan had already checked out when Eve claimed to have spoken to him. Thornhill spots Eve in the lobby. He goes to her room, but she tells him to stay away from her. She allows him to stay and use the shower as she leaves. Using a pencil to reveal the indentations of a message on a notepad, Thornhill learns her destination: an art auction.There, he comes face to face once more with Vandamm. Vandamm purchases a pre-Columbian Tarascan statue. Thornhill tries to leave, only to find all exits covered by Vandamm's men. Thinking quickly, he starts placing nonsensical bids, so the police have to be called to remove him. Thornhill identifies himself as a wanted fugitive, but the officers are ordered to take him to Midway Airport (where a gate for Northwest Airlines is seen, playing on the film's title).Thornhill meets the Professor (Leo G. Carroll), a spymaster who is trying to stop Vandamm from smuggling microfilmed secrets out of the country. The Professor reveals that George Kaplan is a fiction created to distract Vandamm from the real government agent—Eve, whose life is now in danger because of Thornhill. In order to protect her, Thornhill agrees to help the Professor and his agency fool Vandamm.At the cafeteria at the base of Mount Rushmore, Thornhill (now pretending to be George Kaplan) meets with Eve and Vandamm. He offers to allow Vandamm to leave the country unhindered in exchange for Eve. The deal is refused. In a staged struggle, Eve shoots Thornhill and flees. Vandamm and Leonard hastily depart, as the apparently critically wounded Thornhill is taken away by stretcher in a station wagon, accompanied by the Professor. When the makeshift ambulance reaches a secluded spot, Thornhill emerges unharmed to speak with Eve privately. He becomes highly agitated when he learns that she is using the "shooting" to get Vandamm to take her with him, so that she can gather further intelligence. Thornhill is knocked out. He wakes up in a locked hospital room, but escapes through a window.Thornhill arrives at Vandamm’s mountainside home, scales the outside of the building, and slips inside undetected. He learns that the microfilm is in the Tarascan statue, then watches as Leonard convinces Vandamm that Eve is a government agent and the shooting was faked by firing the gun Eve used (filled with blanks) at him. Vandamm decides to throw Eve out of the plane once they are airborne. Thornhill manages to warn her by writing a note inside one of his distinctive matchbooks and dropping it where she will see it.Just before she boards the plane, Eve escapes with the statue and joins Thornhill. Leonard and Valerian chase them across Mount Rushmore; in a struggle, Thornhill throws Valerian off Mount Rushmore and he falls to his death. When Eve slips and clings desperately to the mountainside, Thornhill grabs one of her hands, while precariously steadying himself with his other hand. Leonard arrives and begins grinding his shoe on Thornhill's hand. They are saved by the timely arrival of the Professor and a police marksman, who kills Leonard. Vandamm is taken into custody.The film cuts smoothly from Thornhill pulling Eve to safety on Mount Rushmore to him pulling her into an overhead train bunk, where they are spending their honeymoon. The final shot shows their train speeding into a tunnel.